Last Breath
by kiss-of-cuteness
Summary: [oneshot] The final battle looms and many will draw their last breaths. HGRW


Hey Everyone, I know I always say I'm going to update my other stories then stick random stuff like this in, but this is important. It's for a challenge on the forum Fiction Net found at www. sycotic .org /fnet (without the spaces of course) join up, get sorted, and tell them kissofcuteness or Sierra sent you. Anyways, I was sorted into Slytherin and currently we're not doing too well point wise so I had to do something for the good of the team - and for myself of course.

This is for the Quote me Happy Challenge. The rules are that the story has to be over 750 words and use one of the quotes they give you. The quote I chose to use was "Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth" Lillian Hellman (1905 - 1984), The Little Foxes, 1939

Enjoy

Last Breath

His vivid green eyes swept across the battlefield. They tried to count the amount of people lying lifeless on the ground. Unable to comprehend the myriad of dead beings they turned back to his two friends. Harry new that whatever happened they would be together, the golden trio, bound by friendship for eternity. He felt the guilt of being the cause of destroying so many peoples' lives. He wanted Ron and Hermione to leave but knew that they would stay no matter what he said. Even if he had had nothing to do with being the child of prophecy they would have joined because they believed in the Cause. Hermione was Muggleborns and Ron came from a family that was besotted with Muggles. Harry was a half-blood, a combination of the two.

"What are our odds? Harry?"

Harry hadn't answered Ron's question immediately because he did not want to lie. That was something that had endeared him to the wizarding world. Not only was he the-boy-who-lived, he was not a politician. Harry had integrity. Maybe it came from growing up in a house riddled with avarice, maybe it came from seeing the corruption within the Ministry of Magic, or maybe, just maybe, he was born to be a hero. Many wizards would say offhandedly, "Of course, if I was like Harry Potter I could have survived in those situation." But they weren't like Harry Potter. Harry was Harry.

Hermione's thick chestnut locks were braided back from her face but wisps kept escaping from the tight plait. Her teeth were worrying her lower lip and it had started to bleed. Her hand was clasped tight within Ron's larger one, their fingers intertwined. She had never meant to kill. At the beginning of the battle she had only used stunners. Then a masked figure swathed in a dark cloak had murdered Ginny Weasley: her best friend. The beautiful girl with shiny red hair would never smile again; she wouldn't tease the boys or assure Hermione that Ron liked her. Her face would be forever frozen in a look of consternation.

Hermione had snapped. She had never used the killing curse, but had been adroit in studying it's background and learning how it was performed. Her throat was raw from using the words 'Avada Kedavra.' Those words had become an analgesic to the pain she was feeling. She hurt for the loss of Ginny, for the loss of Seamus, for the loss of Professor Flitwick, for the loss of everyone that had been a part of her world.

She mourned for Draco Malfoy who also lay algid on the battlefield. He had not changed his path and had died a servant of the Dark Lord. She wished he had reformed, wished he had seen the light, wished he had grown up. When the trio had talked about the final battle she hadn't realized she would have to kill a schoolmate.

Ron's face was twisted in pain. He pretended he was holding Hermione's hand to comfort her, but really he was trying to comfort himself. His little sister was gone, he regretted not being able to protect her. It was her contumacious personality that had led her out to the battlefield. Nobody who was still in school was supposed to fight. If only she hadn't been so headstrong. He shook his head, no, that's what made Ginny who she was, and he wouldn't have changed her for anything.

"Harry, the odds?" Hermione asked this time, trying to bring Harry out of the trance he was in.

"We're going to lose." He said this impassively. This was not an opinion. It was a fact.

"Harry don't say that," Hermione pleaded. She knew what the situation was, she knew their chances, but she needed Harry to reassure her, tell her a story, make her believe that the story would end with happily ever after. "It's too cynical, we have to try to find the positives."

"Cynicism is an unpleasant way of saying the truth," said Harry bluntly. "Face it Hermione, we're all going to end up lying in the mud, dead."

"No Hermione, don't listen to him, we have a chance, we'll always have a chance," Ron tried to shield Hermione from the pain Harry's words inflicted.

"Harry, God Harry, just tell me, please, that maybe we'll get out of this alive, maybe we'll all get married and have children and tell them about how, together, we defeated the Dark Lord."

"I can't Hermione, I can't." Harry struggled to blink back tears as he refused to give into his friend's pleadings. They would all die, and he wasn't going to let them walk into their graves oblivious to the truth. "We have to leave now, make our last stand. Voldemort's army is massing."

Ron's arms encircled Hermione's waist and he pulled her flush against him. "I swear Hermione that I will love you, not until death do us part, forever, into eternity."

Tears had begun to streak down her face, the grime on it already mixed with the tears and she didn't try to brush them away. Reaching up she took his face in her hands. Hermione traced his features, running her delicate fingers over his brow, his nose, and his mouth. "I will never stop loving you Ron, we will be together for always, death cannot stop true love." She pulled his face down to his and kissed him tenderly, a long slow kiss, the last one they would ever share.

Hermione turned to look at the army massed on the horizon and grabbed both Harry and Ron's hands. "Together, forever," she whispered.

Together the trio marched, in front of the shattered remnants of the army of Light, to breathe their last breaths.

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So, what'd you think? I know it's nothing in my ususal style but hey, we all have to experiment. So review please and answer one question, do you like my fluff, my angst or my BZHG story better (I'm not sure exactly what you'd classify that under) 


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